Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt is a delightful text, especially for reluctant readers. It can be used to foster discussions and create an excitement for reading. It is a book anyone can enjoy: Gary Schmidt has an entertaining writing style with a strong voice that will engage the most reluctant of readers. A story about everyday life in 1967, it is about Holling Hoodhood, who is in seventh grade. He is convinced that his English teacher hates his guts, because she is making him read Shakespeare outside of class. Meanwhile, the Vietnam War is going on, and he is dealing with parental pressure to follow in his father’s footsteps and be an architect in his dad’s company. He also deals with bullies at school. The characters have vivacious personalities and are easily loved.
It is relatable to many middle schoolers, who often feel like Holling Hoodhood: a square peg in a round hole. Holling doesn’t feel as if he fits in anywhere: with his family or at school, but reading Shakespeare helps him to cope and gives him a new perspective on life, because he can relate to it. He has a good friend and makes more, and he even ends up in a Shakespeare play for a local theater company. (He entered the play in exchange for two dozen cream puffs from the baker who was the head of the theater company. He needed the cream puffs to pay off a debt at school.)
